Create a​ ​Stress-​Resistant​ ​Life​

Lesson 7 of 7

Q & A

Create a​ ​Stress-​Resistant​ ​Life​

Lesson 7 of 7

Q & A

Lesson Info

Q & A

Let's move into Q and A, and then we can close out this segment.
Sometimes, when I get high stress, I tend to shut down completely, um, almost like, I'll do something that doesn't have anything to do with some of the, you know, items that are on my plate, and so...
That's also amygdala-driven, it's a fight, flight, or freeze, so if it gives up on fight, if you give up on flight, then the only thing left to do is just hunker down and do something else, which is pretty maladaptive usually, I mean, sometimes it might be the right thing to do 'cause if your elephant's super escalated, then, sometimes time is the best component, so the three ways, by the way, to manage the elephant, according to Jonathan Hayden and other psychologists, there's only three, uh, number one is, as we talked about, is to distract, so sometimes that might be the right thing, to just take my attention to something else for a time to calm down, get the cortisol out of the system, so I can broaden my focus, so t...

hat might be the right thing sometimes, as long as it's not a true freeze. The second, so first distract, the second is training, mindfulness in this case, just, training the elephant, and then the third is medication. There's only three according to Jonathan Hayden, so it's one of those three, and sometimes medication, by the way, is right, as much as it gets, sort of pilloried sometimes, the metaphor he makes that I really like is some people are operating like a car without oil in their tank, like, oil in their oil pan. That's just fundamentally not gonna work right, so if you are missing oil, you need some oil, right, so some people do need, their, you know, you're hypo or hyper thyroid, you're gonna need some stuff, need to fix that before you can really move onto distraction or training, so it's not always a bad thing. I think it's probably overprescribed and all that stuff, but yeah, so distraction, training, and then medication are the, according to him, the only three ways to manage our stress response cycle, yes.
How would you recommend dealing with someone who is in a family relationship but is just always inherently negative and getting them to, again, reframe and redesign situations, so that they can move past the negativity and see the positive outcomes in a situation.
So, I would probably channel my inner Dave Evans and suggest that might be a gravity problem. Generally, he considers, and it is usually true but not always true, uh, fixing other people's problems is a gravity problem, it means you can't, you just can't, so the first step is acceptance, all right? This person is this way, accepting that, what can I do, either for myself or for that person to design things different? If they have certain stimulus and response mechanisms that lead them to negativity, and by the way, that's, some of us are wired that way, and it's probably the only reason we survived as a race, right, like the people that are most risk-averse didn't get eaten by the sharks and all that stuff, so some people are just wired that way, and that's extremely adaptable in certain circumstances. Unfortunately, not particularly adaptable to family dynamics so you know, ultimately, the question is what can I do, how can I design my life around this fixed, fairly unmovable situation, and I will say that if you talk to some experts, sometimes the right thing to do, sometimes, is to simply not deal with that person. There's plenty of people who will go on record as saying that people that are hyper negative all the time should not be in your life. Now, sometimes you, if they are a close family relative, that is not an option probably, but if they're a second or third degree, it might be more of an option, but that's something you have to sort of sort out. Does that make sense, okay. Yes, Mark?
You know, when you were starting, when you first started, you were talking about fragile anti, fragile resilience and that organic material tends to be more resilient. As I was thinking about that, organic material verse man-made is adaptable, and you started to reference that, and it occurred to me that sort of was a theme that went through was adaptability, it seems like it's, um. I don't know if it's as much of a question as a statement or maybe it is a question as well, is there...
We are, as organic organisms, we're extraordinary adaptable. I mean, you think about what people have gone through. Like, kind of aside, but the settlers, like, crossing the, how the, I mean, I can barely deal with, it was, we were complaining 'cause it was 58 yesterday, you know? It wasn't, you know, 34 and sleeting with just animal pelts and cotton, you know, like I don't know how people survived, but we're so adaptable as a species. One of my favorite books, this is a little aside, but it's by a guy named Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and there's a quote in the book that what I went through, no animal would have ever suffered through. We are like, we can do even more than animals, in terms of what we will do to get through something, and it's, you know, it's an amazing, amazing thing about the human race.
Yeah, well I guess it's the underlying is being told to adapt is gives us the tools to wow, thanks.
Awesome thank you, yes?
So, I'm in a position where I need more stress...
Yes, we can help you with that. I got a lot of things in my, uh, lap top that I can just shunt to you, and...
It might work, but I mean, I know I need it, but I, I mean, it's weird to want it, right, so it's like, I'm gonna burn all my money for me to have the stress of making more money, do you see where I'm going, so like, what have you seen people do in these situations?
If you've got a great safety net, you're ready to leap, like, there's just, if there's things you've always wanted to do or if there's risks you wanted to take, you're in a perfect position to do so, right? People that are, have crawled and scrambled and just barely got themselves to like, level three or four, that's not the time, right, like, take a deep breath, let's settle in for a little bit, but you know, I do think that, you know, we'll talk about this in the next segment, but I think life begins at the edge of your comfort zone, and so if you're too comfortable, I think that you are missing out on one of the greatest fruits of life which is that risk and reward mechanism that that rewards great risks with great rewards.

Class Description

Workplace stress has reached all time highs with no end in sight. In this session John will reverse a typical question people ask. Instead of “How can I reduce stress to perform better?” John will help you consider “How can I perform better under increased stress… and learn to like it?” Explore a new model of resiliency based on neuroscience, where proactive challenges are designed to build capacity for ever greater performance under pressure, while learning the new brain science of recovery. Illuminated by entertaining and informative stories from John’s Olympic and business careers.

Susan Burks

John is a wonderful and passionate speaker. The way he weaves his own stories into the material as a resonate touching through-line makes the learning that he shares stay with you. We all need to be more resilient in the face of more and more and more and his insights and tools are both uplifting and change-making.